Python season is back with a vengeance.
As hunters return to the Everglades...
Look at that, look at that, underneath that log!
They find an enemy transformed.
-Where'd he go? -I don't know.
I've never seen the pythons adapting
like they are now.
Ruled by giant females,
the monsters have learned to evade hunters...
They becoming harder and harder
to find. They're getting smarter.
Allowing them to breed faster than ever...
We're running out of time.
Birthing hundreds of new pythons
from their secret lairs.
They're gonna do a lot of damage if those eggs hatch.
Now, new recruits join the fray.
The clearing's right there in that direction.
Sometimes my crazy ideas work out for us.
Going deep into enemy territory...
[thunder] Oh.
Oh! Uh!
-Aah! -Aah!
And fighting relentlessly...
We gotta get these things out of here.
As soon as the snakes smell the smoke,
they gonna start moving.
To take back the Glades.
Oh, my God.
Get her tail!
She's wrapping up, she's wrapping!
-No way. -It ate a deer, dude.
Over the last three decades,
Burmese pythons have invaded the Everglades,
decimating native wildlife.
Right there! Look, look, watch it.
Though man is fighting back...
Aah!
The adversary is also evolving.
Seems like the snakes are adapting to hunting pressure.
These snakes are so well-equipped.
I mean, this is Mother Nature at her finest.
They not just gonna lay down and let us catch them.
Old Dusty Crum.
What's up, bud?
King of the Swamp Troy Landry
gathers his forces to devise a new plan of attack.
Uh-oh. Look who's coming.
I thought we was early.
Troy's mission: help the Glades and make some money,
culling the deadly python population
in return for a share of Florida's bounty on pythons.
-Hey. -Hello, ladies.
He's enlisted new blood to help out:
veteran alligator hunter Ashley "Deadeye" Jones
and Dusty's stepdaughter,
Florida snake hunter Kaylyn Glenn.
The team knows the season will be tough.
Things have changed a little bit since last year.
You know, the snakes are--
they're starting to evolve like us, you know.
We're getting better at catching them,
but they're getting better at hiding.
These pythons are adapting to our pressure.
They're getting smarter,
they're getting wiser, they're getting faster.
The snakes that have been able to evade us,
the pythons that are going down in the holes to lay the eggs,
they're passing those genes on to the next generation.
Catching five or six snakes a day
is not possible like we done in the past?
I don't see how, Troy.
You know, what's the approach here?
We start trying to really target them big breeder females.
You get the eggs before they get a chance to hatch out
and harm any of our native wildlife.
And this way we're catching,
like, 75 snakes instead of it being just one,
-if you think about it. -That's true.
The female Burmese pythons
can lay up to 100 eggs at a time.
The offspring will reach sexual maturity in just four years.
This rapid rate of reproduction
is what makes the fight against the invasive serpents
so difficult.
We gotta hit the ground running,
because the big females are traveling,
looking for a place to lay the eggs.
If we don't catch 'em on the move,
they're gonna be very hard to find, man.
Okay.
It's like a ticking clock.
These females are coming out of the Everglades
to lay their eggs and make their nests.
So it's a very short window of time
that we have to find them.
How are we gonna make the same money we made last year?
We caught all those snakes.
You can take the skins
and hopefully make us...
close to as much money as we made last year.
The bones, you can make the jewelry,
the fat can make the soap.
Really get every nickel and dime
out of these things, bud, so...
I mean, I can help you guys out with that.
Sounds like we got a plan, Dusty.
Hopefully we gonna keep you busy skinning.
Whew. Back in the old days,
you're catching five, six snakes a day,
you know, that adds up.
You know, we really gotta make each one count
and utilize it to the best of my ability.
We here to help the Everglades, number one.
Number two, if we make money out of it, good,
but we gotta have a positive impact.
-Be safe, y'all. -Yup, y'all, too.
Good luck, everybody. We're gonna need it.
This is our window of opportunity.
We gotta hunt hard and hunt fast.
Here we go.
As the teams spread out,
King of the Swamp Troy Landry
starts the season with someone new.
Filling in for Troy's usual partner Pickle
is veteran snake hunter Tes Lee.
Pee-wee's home. She's pregnant.
She's about to have a little baby.
I'm very lucky.
Tes took Pee-wee's place this year,
and Tes is very smart about the Everglades.
She's a Florida native, she been here all her life...
and she knows a lot.
I'm excited with the team that we have.
I get to hunt with the King of the Swamp,
and that's a huge compliment and an honor.
It's unfortunate that we have so many snakes out here still,
but I think we've got a great setup,
and I'm looking forward to getting them out of here.
To target large female pythons
looking for a meal before laying their eggs,
Tes wants to explore a promising
but potentially dangerous new spot.
A mile or two up here, we gonna run into
the most recent sinkhole that we've had
-and figured we could hunt it. -Oh, we just gotta be careful.
Last thing we wanna do
is drive a buggy into a sinkhole.
Okay, we can approach it from a distance maybe?
When a sinkhole gives way,
specifically if it has a bunch of limestone
around it, like we do in Florida,
it'll retain water very well,
and it'll kind of create a little pond.
And when that happens, then you get all little animals
that need a new source of water, things begin coming to it,
and with the small animals come the pythons.
Large parts of the state of Florida
sit on a layer of porous limestone.
These contain pockets where ground water
has slowly carved tunnels and holes.
When they collapse, huge sinkholes can form.
In 1981, a big sinkhole swallowed a home,
community pool, and several businesses.
I think it's just up heres a way.
I think we should walk from here.
-Okay. -Just to be safe.
Yeah, no, I think that's a great plan.
And we'll look for snakes on the way.
-All right, be careful. -Mm-hmm.
Let's go see what we can find.
Everything's slippery.
Yes, sir.
-It's getting squishy. -Feels like a sponge.
You can feel it moving.
Dude, the whole ground is moving here.
I know, I know. There's a sinkhole here, man.
Troy, there's a snake right here.
-What? -Snake right here, right here!
Where? Where?
Hurry, hurry! Hurry!
Troy, he's in the water!
Where at?
Right here!
Oh, my gosh.
Hold up... I think I'm getting stuck in this.
Give me your hand, I'm gonna pull you out.
-Okay, hold on, hold on... -Put one foot
in front of the other.
-You all right? -Yeah. This is just--
Watch it, it's most probably we on
the edge of that sinkhole. Be careful.
I saw him slithering away,
and then, you know we kind of
stirred it up and got a little bit stuck.
-And you can't see in here. -No, it's gone.
Some pythons can swim
at a speed of four feet per second,
faster than a human.
I never saw the snake, but she seen it.
She caught a glimpse of it, and we wind up losing it.
But even though we lost it, it's very encouraging
because that tells us we're in the right spot.
Listen, the rocks are super slippery,
so be-- be careful.
-Just focus on getting across. -Whoa.
It's very dangerous.
The closer you get to the sinkhole,
the softer the ground is.
It's almost like quicksand, it's soggy.
And who knows when where you're walking
is gonna give out?
Okay, your turn.
-Oof! -Oh!
Just take your time. Don't panic.
Oh!
Right, you got it, you got it, you got it.
Coming back through here is gonna be a nightmare,
but we come this far.
We not about to turn around.
-Whoa! -Twenty-one miles west...
-Whoo! -Whoa! Found a hole.
[laughs]
Experienced python hunter
and Dusty Crum's stepdaughter
Kaylyn Glenn is tasked
with showing the ropes of snake hunting
to Ashley "Deadeye" Jones.
My ties here are super deep.
My family has been here for multiple generations.
This our land, this is our woods.
Super, super excited to have Ashley on my team,
who's an expert alligator hunter.
She is tough, she is passionate,
and she is the absolute best partner
I could've ever picked for myself.
[thump] Whoo!
You feel that? We just hit a big limestone rock.
The thing I really feel like I have as an advantage
is the courage and audacity
to get through these woods the way that I do.
My fear is that I'm not gonna be able
to physically grab the snake.
I don't know if a fear of these pythons
is gonna be something that helps me
to be extra cautious of not getting bit
or if this is gonna be something that hinders my ability
to be able to reach out with my bare hands
and grab a python who's trying to bite me.
I like a good challenge, but at the same time,
I like the pride of being able
to conquer my challenge, too.
See all this water that's out here?
-Yeah. -This is gonna be
really good for us looking for pythons.
Yeah, this is a little more water than I was expecting.
Yeah, this all happened, believe it or not,
within four or five days, this rain.
We just got out of our dry season.
With the high levels of flooding we experienced,
it opened up this massive highway
where a lot of these pythons now
had a way to get to better food sources.
So Ashley and I, we're gonna work this area,
and it looks really promising.
-Whoa, that got deep. -Yeah, it drops off.
All right, let's come through here.
You wanna check under all this brush.
Lots of life, lots of nooks and crannies to hide in.
Everything a snake could want is right here.
Exactly.
Snake!
Get it, get it, get it.
Wait, I don't see it.
He's moving.
Is he moving towards you or me?
-Whoa! -Coming your way.
Whoo! Hold on.
-Ahh, ahh... -Can you grab the tail?
Ashley, get the tail, get the tail.
Aah!
Whoo! Hold on.
Ashley is facing off with her very first python.
Ashley, can you grab the tail?
Aah!
And it's one angry serpent.
He's mad. Mad.
Now what?
You wanna walk slowly behind him.
You wanna grab him from behind his head, okay?
-Oh! -She's looking right at you.
He can smell my fear.
Aah! Damn!
Hold on, he's coming back this way.
Get it, get it, get it.
-Got him. -Good job.
-Mm. -Yes!
I didn't wanna do that a bit.
You got your first snake.
Man.
[exhales] I'm real scared.
I don't like this.
This is a lot more intimidating than I thought it would be.
When you have a snake coming at you
that's head is literally the size
of your hands opening up together,
and they can open their mouths literally like this,
which is obviously plenty...
of room to fit my head in there.
-Aah! -Ha!
-Whoa, sorry! -[laughs]
You're doing awesome.
Look at her mouth.
She is a... feisty one.
Oh, my gosh, I'm so proud of Ashley.
What a great way to kick off our morning.
Once they return to the buggy,
the team will still need to secure the python
before continuing their hunt.
Don't let go of the head. She might strike at you.
Along the northern border of the Everglades...
[cattle moo]
Florida native Zak Catchem and his partner Bruce Mitchell
team up with a local rancher
to try out a new snake hunting strategy.
Look at this pile.
What's up, bud?
What's going on, guys?
Let's get with it.
How you doing, rancher? Nice to see you, J.
What's good there, pimp daddy?
-You ready to do this? -Juicy Brucie.
Man, that's a big pile of brush.
How long it take you to collect all that stuff?
A while. We've had close to 80 piles.
-Eighty piles? -Wow.
That's more than I thought, man.
That hurricane really wiped y'all, huh?
In 2022, Hurricane Ian
ravaged the state of Florida.
Ocean surge and torrential rains
flooded areas across the state
as winds of up to 160 miles per hour
ripped massive, centuries-old trees
right out of the ground.
So you're just gonna go
to each and every one of these brush piles
and light them up, huh?
Yup. We're just gonna spend the day burning.
If the hunters are correct, smoke from the brush piles
will force pythons out of their dens
and get them on the move.
They're just gonna be shooting off
-like fireworks so... -They might move fast
and hit the creek and go across.
We'll grab my tank and we'll get to it.
Fire 'em up.
That's what I'm talking about.
Look at this. That's insane.
With the smoke spreading, the hunters prepare
to scour the surrounding woods for serpents on the move.
-All right, bro. -All right, see what we can do.
Meanwhile, back at Dusty's camp...
I spend half my time out here cleaning these suckers, son.
When he's not out hunting himself,
Dusty's processing pythons
for the products he plans to make and sell.
You know, so it really ain't the pythons' fault
that they're in this situation.
So out of respect for the animal,
I try to utilize every piece of it.
I got it set up right now at the camp
like an old snake chop shop, man.
It's like one of them places where they disassemble the cars.
This little green egg right here,
that's a gallbladder.
Whatever's in here, this enzyme,
that stuff's working overtime.
So I'm gonna be using the leather
to make any kind of leather products
I can think of, man. Wallets, boots, belts.
The most valuable part of a Burmese python is the skin.
With natural markings that are more rounded
than those of other python species,
it's used in many high-end accessories.
And because it's thin but extremely strong,
the skin of a Burmese python
is among the most highly prized by the garment industry.
There's about seven and a half inches for a wallet.
I can probably get about eight,
eight or nine wallets, maybe ten if I get lucky.
Be a way to pick up a couple hundred.
Python sandals, python boots,
python wrist cuffs, python earrings,
python bangle cuffs, python braces.
Let that baby drip-dry, boy. Get back to it later.
I figured out a way to make dollar bills
out of every part of that python, man.
Thirty-five miles east,
Troy and Tes are on the hunt for Burmese pythons
looking to nest near a sinkhole.
It's getting thicker in here, Troy.
Yeah, it's getting thicker.
And the water's not quite as deep over here.
But they have yet to catch their first python
of the season.
We getting burned out. We not having no luck.
There could be hundreds and thousands of them around here,
but finding them is a different story.
These things are perfectly camouflaged.
I mean, Mother Nature did her homework
when she invented the python.
Careful with this sawgrass. It's gonna chew your arms up.
Tes, Tes, Tes!
-Yeah? -Tes, over here, over here!
Where, where, where?
Holy [bleep]!
-Whoo-hoo! -Oh, my God.
Gosh, she's full of eggs.
I ain't never seen something so big in my life.
Oh, my God!
Tes!
Aah! Troy!
Tes, go around. Go around. Tes.
-I got his tail. -Tes, you got-- no.
-What? -Forget about the tail.
Okay.
We gotta get the head.
Go on top of that nasty [bleep] in front of me.
-Hurry up. Hurry! -Okay, okay, okay.
Going, going, going.
Huh? I can't hold it.
Where is it, where is it?
-Right in front of you. -Okay.
Find the head. I'm not letting go
until you tell me you got the head.
Or at least see it.
Got tunnels all over in here.
We can't let him go. He's gonna get in the tunnels.
Oh, I see it, I see it, I see it!
You see the head?
I got it, I got it, I got it!
Okay, I'll let it go.
Aah!
Near a sinkhole...
Oh, I see it, I see it, I see it!
You see the head?
Troy and Tes are battling
a monster whose skin alone
may be worth thousands.
Aah!
You see the head?
I got the head, Troy! Aah!
Ooh, this thing is nasty.
We gotta get the head.
Come behind.
Grab her! Hurry!
-Aah! -Whoo!
I got the head, Troy.
We in trouble. It's so strong.
Coming to curl up on you.
Don't let him go.
Troy.
-You all right? -Oh, man.
Despite fierce resistance,
the two hunters eventually subdue the huge snake.
I have never fought this hard.
Good work, man.
I wasn't letting it go till you told me you saw the head,
but I couldn't hold it no more. I mean, this snake is
three times stronger than me.
This gotta be a big female, huh?
-Oh, you kidding me? -Look, I never
-seen a big fat snake. -She's got so much in here.
This is the lottery. I mean, this is
exactly why we do this.
Oh, yeah, but this is
a killing machine, believe me,
as pretty as it is.
We was about to call it a day, and it happened so fast
you don't have time to get scared
or get worried about it wrapping around you or biting you.
You just gotta react.
And no way in hell it was gonna get away.
-Whew. -Good job.
Oh, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.
At 15 feet and over 80 pounds,
a python of this massive size
can enter a coma from sheer exertion.
- Oh, look at this. - Yeah.
Bigger than my thigh.
Let's take it out of here and put this thing in a sack.
All right, you ready?
Oh, oh, oh, Tes Marie.
-Oh. -Oh.
-You all right? -Yeah.
It does not pay to have back problems
-and catch a snake this big. -Oh, I know.
Lead the way.
Sixty-five miles away...
They had to go back this way, the woods.
I'm with you, brother. Let's go.
Zak and Bruce hope to ambush pythons
fleeing the smoke from smoldering piles of brush.
The fires are burning down now.
I think if we go further back in the woods,
we gonna catch snakes. I think they got
a little head start on us, so that's where we're heading,
further back.
I'm gonna go this way.
Yeah, you get that side,
I'm just gonna check all along these palmettos,
-all right? -All right.
There's some solid holes out here, man.
Look at all these trails, dude.
There's just so many places for a snake to ambush its prey, man.
It's crazy back here.
Bruce! Bruce! Bruce! Bruce, right here!
There's a snake right here, Bruce.
Right here.
Bruce!
I'm coming, I'm coming.
No-no, I can't see him.
He went through these palmettos.
He's right here somewhere.
I don't see him.
Damn.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
He's not in the open field, obviously. Go to your left.
I'm gonna check it out over here, okay?
-Okay. -Keep your eyes peeled.
He's gotta be right here. He could not have gotten far.
I promise you he's right here.
Damn!
-Can you get around that side? -Yeah.
Come on, let's go back the other way.
We know the snakes are pushing in this direction.
-I mean... -Let's go in and go around,
around the backside of that and come out over there.
We had a solid snake get away from us,
but it does mean our strategy is working.
So it is worth coming behind all these burn piles
and checking the surrounding areas.
We're gonna catch some snakes without a doubt.
-Keep your eyes out, dude. -Yeah, there's gotta be
-a snake or two nearby. -Yup.
Further south...
Ashley and Kaylyn explore
a narrow dry ridge for nesting pythons.
The females, when they're hunting,
that's a really good opportunity for us.
We'll see them maybe crossing our paths,
but we'll be looking for their holes
and where they've potentially created a nest
or looking to lay a nest.
Let's see.
A good one?
Yeah, it looks like a great hole.
Is it deep?
Yeah, let's find out.
See how far back I can get it.
Bees! Bees, bees, bees, bees!
Bees! Aah!
Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow!
While poking for python holes...
-Is it deep? -Yeah, let's find out.
Ashley and Kaylyn stir up the wrong nest.
Bees! Bees, bees, bees, bees!
Bees! Aah!
Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow!
There's nowhere to go!
Aah!
They're on me, they're on me, they're on me! Aah!
[buzzing]
Are they biting you? I got my boots on.
Are they still there? Are they still there?
I don't see them.
They're swarming right above where the hole is,
right by the tree.
Absolutely swarming.
Oh, I think those are the Africanized bees, too.
Also known as killer bees,
African bees are a cross between an invasive species,
the East African lowland bee, and the western honey bee.
First spotted in North America in 1985,
they've been a growing threat ever since,
known to chase their target over long distances
and mercilessly sting their victims.
Whoo!
I didn't even think about jumping in
with these on and it being really heavy
because I didn't think about how deep that was.
I'm so sorry for poking that hole.
Normally it ends up paying out for us,
but today it did not.
There have been so many instances out here
in Florida of people who have been stung
by these Africanized honey bees who've died.
So we had no other option but to run
and to jump into anything that could protect us,
which at that point was the water.
And though there were alligators and who knows what else,
that was the only thing keeping us from them.
Hey, good job. Way to save yourself.
Thank you.
Back at the snake chop shop,
Dusty is continuing to turn a python into profit.
You gotta stretch every little piece out of it.
I figure this snake here,
probably get ten wallets out of it,
if I cut it right.
Back when we first all got started,
man, you know, you could take the snake and just
get the bounty and that's good enough, man,
because you're catching four, five, six a day, you know.
But now it don't work like that, man.
I gotta figure out a way to make every snake count
and get the most money I can for each one.
That's good old American craftsmanship.
You know, it's a lost art.
You know, to make a quality product,
it takes time.
It takes love, it takes energy.
Every dollar I can make off a python product
goes back into our operation.
I mean, it's funding our whole hunt, you know.
It's keeping air in the buggy tires
and gas in the trucks, and, you know,
motors on our boats.
It's like, if we don't have this,
like, our whole hunting team will fall apart.
Trim off these loose ends.
Voila, son.
You're looking at a $75 bill.
If I can make eight or ten more of these...
that's gonna put me in the ballpark
somewhere, like, in the $500 to $800 range.
Cha-ching!
Further north...
-You hungry? -Oh, yeah.
Bruce and Zak fill up their tanks
as they wait to conduct one more sweep of the woods
after dark.
Dude, look in my bag.
[laughs]
Why do you have buns?
And you still have that same mustard?
[laughs]
Since I've been a little boy, I've been carrying
what they call a go-bag. You better bring something
to start a fire with, something to eat,
that's the way I look at things.
I knew me and Zak, we were gonna be hungry.
So you get hungry,
fire, hungry, fire, hot dogs, right?
-How is it? -Good.
Best hot dogs you'll eat out here.
When you're right, you're right.
[both laugh]
I ain't never gonna let you starve.
- That's for sure. - Mmm.
As night falls...
Now we got a full belly, I'm ready to go catch
another snake.
The two men return
to searching for pythons.
Getting thicker over here.
We don't want snakes escaping. We're gonna push
to the very end and make sure we don't miss a thing.
Nice hole back here.
Dude, dude, dude. Look, look, look.
-Wait. -I see it, I see it!
Yeah! Come on!
Come on!
-Bruce, come on, get... -I'm coming, dude.
-Bruce, come on! -I got you, I got you.
-I got you! -Oh, my God, Bruce!
Help me out! Aah!
Holy crap, that's a monster.
-Bruce! -I got it, I got it.
Two hands, buddy.
I'm gonna stretch her out.
You're doing great, Bruce.
I do not wanna get bit by this thing.
-Come on, Zak. -Whoa!
Bruce, do not get bit.
If this thing bites you, we're screwed.
Watch it, watch it, watch it, watch it!
After a long day of hunting...
Oh, my God!
Dang, how long is this thing?
Zak and Bruce finally
have hands on a monster.
I'm trying to--
-Grab it, grab it, grab it! -Oh, my God.
Oh! Okay. Don't let her
come back at you. Watch out, watch out.
Here we go, here we go. Yeah, right there.
Here we go-- aah!
Oh, my God!
Be careful, man.
Watch it, watch it, watch it, watch it!
Aah! Come on.
Look at that. Don't let it wrap me up.
Hold her, hold her. She's swinging me around.
I know.
This 12-foot female
may be their only snake for the day,
but in a season when nothing's guaranteed,
removing it counts as a victory,
with a potential profit of more than $1,000.
Just try your best to get her in here.
-Okay. -You're doing great.
Dude.
Lift it up. Lift up the bag now.
Yeah, just like that. Oh, my God.
You never know how things are gonna work out
when you come up with a new strategy,
and our strategy paid off today.
We're feeling really good about today.
I tell you what, we kicked ass today, man.
Yeah, I know, man.
Pretty good for one day, I think.
-I think we hit a home run. -Yup.
I'm ready to get me some sleep.
Yeah, let's get home, Brucie. Good job today, man.
I'm proud of you.
Deep into the night,
Ashley and Kaylyn
push on for one more python.
It's definitely more difficult to hunt at night
because we can't see anything.
That's scary to me, so I guess
it's the fear of the unknown.
Snake! I think I see a snake.
Oh, that's definitely a snake! That's a snake!
-Where? -There's a snake.
There's a snake! There it is.
-Aah! Get it! Get it! -Got it!
I touched it, I touched it. Ow!
Grab it, grab it if you can see it.
I didn't see where it went.
Gosh darn it. Come on.
We're not losing this one. Please.
-Where'd it go? -I touched the back of it,
and it slipped out of my hand because it's so fricking wet.
It's gotta be right here.
There's water here.
When we're out here at night, it's so easy
to see a snake and lose it or not see a snake at all.
And even once you spot it, I mean, you're only working
with, like, three to four feet of light in front of you.
You can only see so far as the flashlight takes you.
You know what we're not taking
-into consideration? -What?
The fact that snakes can climb trees.
We've got a lot more trees than we have
anything else out here.
Perfect.
Further south...
What? This was all dry this evening.
-Ooh. -That water's come up
since we been back here.
Carrying their 80 pound massive python,
Troy and Tes now face a new obstacle:
crossing the sinkhole.
-Wow. -Where are those rocks?
I see the first one. I don't see the rest.
It could've rained 20 miles north of us.
Who knows what's going on?
Where can we go around it?
-We just gotta go around. -We can't go around.
This is the narrowest spot.
We caught a giant snake,
and I've been carrying that thing all evening.
I don't feel like I can walk another mile in one direction
and a mile back.
This where we crossed coming in.
This is where we gonna cross going out.
If we don't cross this to get back,
I don't know how the hell we gonna get back.
[laughs] We have to swim across this?
I don't like how this looks.
I can't see.
I don't know what's below me,
I don't know how deep this hole goes,
and I'm not sure what's made its home in here already.
This is just way too sketchy of an environment for me.
I say we move and we move quick.
Okay.
I'm gonna go first.
If you feel that the bottom gives out,
just swim. You know how hard it was
for us to catch this damn thing and how far we had to walk?
We don't wanna lose it.
All right, I'm gonna go first.
Oh, God, okay.
Whew.
Ooh! Ay yi yi.
Whoa!
All right, come on, come on.
Hold on to that branch I showed you.
Come on, Tes, come on.
Come on.
-What I didn't wanna do is this. -Hurry up.
Swim!
Don't stop.
Kick, kick, kick.
-Come on, come on. -Aah!
Come on, come on. Give me your hand.
Come on. Uh!
-You good? -Yeah, yeah.
That was deeper than I expected it to be.
You all right?
I'm alive, so, yes, I'm good.
All right, come on, let's get the hell out of here.
Yeah, please.
Now that we done crossed,
we got the dangerous part behind us,
we're gonna bring this big female to the buggy,
and tomorrow we're gonna take it to Dusty's
and cut her open and see what's inside.
We getting out of here.
Thirty-one miles west...
-Nothing? -Nothing.
After hunting all night,
Kaylyn and Ashley head back to their buggy,
keeping an eye for any snakes emerging to sun themselves.
And I already walked all back through all those woods
so we can kinda skip ahead a bit and then we'll spread out.
Yeah, I wanna keep going through here.
We've been up hunting all night.
I'm absolutely exhausted, Ashley's exhausted,
we're thankful to be okay,
and we are just getting the heck out of here
and going back to our buggy.
Come on, be a snake in here.
I just know I'm gonna pull one back,
it's gonna be right there.
I just know it.
Really surprised we haven't seen anything else.
Seems like a perfect place for a snake to be.
Yeah.
Snake! Snake!
-Snake? -Snake!
Okay, wait, wait, wait.
-Oh, my God. -Okay, okay, okay.
-Oh, yeah! -Kaylyn, that's a good snake.
That's a good snake!
Ashley, you wanna get her?
I don't know. Oh, I'm scared.
I got her tail. I got her tail.
I don't know. I'm scared.
Whoa!
On the second day of their hunt...
-Ashley, you wanna get her? -I don't know.
Ashley and Kaylyn attempt to wrestle
another monster into submission.
-I'm scared. -I got her tail.
-She's moving. -I got her tail.
-Oh, whoa, whoa! -She's coming your way.
-she's coming your way. -Whoo!
Whoa!
-Feel confident with that grab? -Yeah.
You got this. Yes!
Whoo!
-Yeah! Yeah! -Yes! Damn, I'm scared!
-Hell, yeah. -We got her.
Here, I'm gonna let go of her for a second.
All right. Whoo, it's a big'un.
Look at her go, look at her bite.
-Heck, yeah. -Whoo!
Oh, my gosh.
Look at that belly, too.
This ten-foot breeding female
marks a memorable first day of python hunting for Ashley.
Can you feel some eggs in her?
-She looks fat. -She does look like it.
Yeah, look at her right at the back.
I'm really happy about all this. This is something
that I didn't think I would be able to do,
and it still makes my heart pound out of my chest.
You got a good hold on that head as we're walking through?
Yeah, come on.
Thankfully she's not as mean right now.
Back at Dusty's...
-Look what we got, dude. -Son!
Troy and Tes have brought the massive 15-foot python
they caught yesterday for an autopsy and processing.
This is one of the biggest, fattest snakes I've ever seen.
How many eggs you think a mature female like this can have?
There's only one way to find out, son.
It's like a Christmas present. You gotta come open it up.
We off to a good start.
We found a big female snake.
We gonna cut her open and see what's inside.
I can't wait to see
how many eggs she got in her.
What we gonna do first is flip it over
onto the belly, and let's get this thing
opened up and find out
-how many eggs are inside. -All right.
Oh, you don't have a knife. You use a razor blade?
Yeah, I'm like a surgeon, son, a swamp surgeon.
So, Dusty...
a big mature female like this,
they almost always got eggs, huh?
-This time of year, for sure. -Yeah.
-Oh. -What is that?
That's an egg right there, boy.
-I just cut into one. -Are you serious?
-See that yolk? -Yeah.
Now that's fat.
-That's an egg. -That's an egg.
-But these are fat.
-This thing's... -Look how fat.
-Whoa. -Unreal.
This thing was so ready to lay eggs,
I mean, it's gonna pop.
She was making her nest right there.
Peel that skin back like that.
Look at them eggs.
-Wow! -No!
-Look at that. -No.
-This-- There are so many. -Lord.
This is the problem, you know what I mean?
This is why these things can breed like this.
When you cut open one of these females
that has all these eggs in them,
I mean, you can't help but smile.
We are doing our jobs and we are doing our jobs
successfully, and it feels good.
This is why we do it.
This is like Easter, son.
Let's count these eggs up and see what we got.
-All right. -One, two,
three, four, five, six...
One, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight.
I've got 29 over here.
Fifteen, 16, 17, 18, 19,
-20, 21, 22... -Thirty.
Twenty-nine, 30.
-Thirty-nine. -And then I got 30 over here.
-Sixty-nine. -Jeez.
Sixty-nine little ones.
-One female. -Yo, guys.
Wow.
Sixty-nine eggs.
This is a great beginning.
Tes and I, we hunting snakes.
The first time we hunt together.
I enjoy hunting with her.
I'm happy to have her as a partner right now.
She's doing very good.
It's crazy something that little
can get to be something this big.
Well, look at it this way, we got
breakfast for the next few days.
How do you like them, sunny-side-up?
-Yeah. -Okay.
You can have them. I don't want them.
[laughs]